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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24525250">build a quilt from all who have loved me</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryptidgay/pseuds/cryptidgay'>cryptidgay</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Episode Tag, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Episode: e169 Fire Escape (The Magnus Archives)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 09:02:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,521</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24525250</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryptidgay/pseuds/cryptidgay</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"What's wrong?"</p>
<p>“My sweater,” Martin says.</p>
<p>“Your… what?”</p>
<p>“My sweater, Jon.” There’s a wobble in his voice. Jon identifies it as a kind of grief, though he can't yet identify why. “In the building — it was so hot, so I took it off, and I… I wasn’t exactly thinking so I must have dropped it, and now it’s probably a burnt husk.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>241</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>build a quilt from all who have loved me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>title from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kRuMPNeQBc">clean slated state</a> by the altogether. started writing this right after last week's episode and figured i should finish and throw it online before 170 comes out!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“Oh, fuck.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They’re well out of Jude Perry’s realm by the time Martin speaks, but his voice is still smoke-hoarse. There is, truth be told, not much that surprises Jon anymore — the omnipotence of his patron has ensured that whatever horrors he can dream up are no worse than the ones playing themselves out all around them — but that gives him a moment of pause. The burns have faded and the coughing has ceased but Martin sounds for all the world like someone who has spent half an hour in a burning building, only just barely escaping with his life.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cue the now-familiar pang of guilt.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What’s wrong?” He stops in his tracks and turns to Martin. They’ve been walking in silence for… well, time has no meaning in this place, but it’s been quite a bit, by Jon’s estimate. A thousand years, perhaps? Or has the quiet just made the hours stretch on? The void of familiar conversation, the weight of all they’re leaving unsaid, the immense regret Jon feels bubbling its way up his throat like boiling water every time he opens his mouth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Martin may not have burns, but his hair sticks to his forehead with sweat, curls flattened. There may not be lasting damage, but the way he avoids Jon’s eyes speaks volumes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“My sweater,” Martin says.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Your… what?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“My sweater, Jon.” There’s a wobble in his voice. Jon identifies it as a kind of grief, though he can't yet identify why. “In the building — it was so hot, so I took it off, and I… I wasn’t exactly </span>
  <em>
    <span>thinking</span>
  </em>
  <span> so I must have dropped it, and now it’s probably a burnt husk.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh.” Jon cannot shake the sense there’s something he’s missing. It’s still uncomfortable, the not-knowing; much as he’s promised not to snoop around the edges of Martin’s thoughts, much as he keeps the Eye locked behind closed doors so as not to intrude, it would be sickeningly easy to look. He’s never liked mysteries.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As it is, he knows (no capital-letter needed) that he will have to solve this one on his own. No outside help. Nothing to aid him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sorry,” he continues after a moment. Doesn’t reach out; isn’t quite sure that’d be </span>
  <em>
    <span>welcome</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He’s all honest wide-eyes, open as an expression gets.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s fine, it’s nothing, I don’t know why I’m making such a big </span>
  <em>
    <span>thing</span>
  </em>
  <span> of it,” Martin says, scratching at his arms like he’s expecting scalded scabs there, interfering with whatever healing might have been done if the fire had left its mark. Jon is all too aware that where his own skin displays clearly the scars of all he has gone through, Martin’s is nearly clear. Freckles. A few small scars from childhood scrapes, in the days before he’d been bound to his house to take care of his mother. Jon’s heard the stories behind all of them by now.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t know what to do with this new hurt.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Clearly it isn’t nothing.” Jon’s voice is soft, unobtrusive. He tries to tell himself that he does not </span>
  <em>
    <span>need</span>
  </em>
  <span> to know, that he’ll be content if Martin chooses not to share what’s on his mind. He doesn’t owe Jon anything: not honesty, not answers, not vulnerability. Jon hopes he will give it regardless.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Martin sighs. It’s got the weight of a world in it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t… I still don’t remember much about Sasha. Nothing I can actually </span>
  <em>
    <span>believe</span>
  </em>
  <span>, you know? For all I know it could </span>
  <em>
    <span>all</span>
  </em>
  <span> still be that — that </span>
  <em>
    <span>thing</span>
  </em>
  <span> playing a joke on me? But I </span>
  <em>
    <span>think</span>
  </em>
  <span>…” Martin’s words are trembling, and so are his hands, and Jon reaches out at last. Takes one hand in his own. Loose-gripped; Martin is free to pull away, but he doesn’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“She used to knit. For a while I was confused where the sweater even came from, because it wasn’t — it wasn’t factory-made, you know? It had a hand-sewn little tag in it but I could never quite make out what it said, like the Sharpie on it had run off in the wash. But Tim had a matching one. We both wore them to work one day, not long before — the Unknowing, all that. And I guess we figured it out then? Pretty sure they were Hanukkah presents. I don’t — I don’t know </span>
  <em>
    <span>why</span>
  </em>
  <span> that’s what we landed on, but it. It felt right. That sounds stupid.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh God, Martin.” Jon doesn’t have anything of the real Sasha. If he’d ever had a matching sweater in the set, it’d been lost when he’d fled his flat after Leitner’s death. He’d sent Georgie in for a few books he hadn’t wanted to lose, some clothes to get him by, but by and large his things had gone wherever objects go when a person stops paying their rent for months on end.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s odd, this spike of mourning for something he isn’t even sure he ever </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span>. But if she’d made them for both Tim and Martin, logic dictates it was probably after they’d joined him in the Archives, and… he doesn’t remember being friends with Sasha James, true, but the ease of their conversation on the scant few tapes he has of her voice speak volumes. He’s not that carefree with many people, even now. (</span>
  <em>
    <span>Now</span>
  </em>
  <span>, especially, now that Martin’s the only person he has, but even </span>
  <em>
    <span>before</span>
  </em>
  <span>, it’s always been difficult for him to grow close to anybody.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s fine,” Martin says before Jon can force anything else out, but his brow’s still furrowed. His fingers are twitching at his sides; normally, he’d be fiddling with loose yarn on his sweater sleeves. Jon’s noticed that habit of his, thought it was charming.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It isn’t fine, and they both know it. They’ve lost </span>
  <em>
    <span>so much</span>
  </em>
  <span> and Jon thinks it must be unforgivable for him to make Martin lose even one more thing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sorry.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s not your fault I dropped it —”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, perhaps not, but I did insist we go in there in the first place. You gave me the choice between revenge and you and I chose revenge and — I don’t think — it wasn’t worth it.” Martin coughs; it isn’t smoke stuck in his lungs, but it must be the same sort of burning discomfort. Jon winces and stares down at the ground. “It wasn’t.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I put the decision up to you,” Martin says, exhaustion fogging every syllable.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I should’ve chosen differently.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah, well,” and Martin’s not denying it, not placing the blame entirely upon his own shoulders, and that’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>something</span>
  </em>
  <span>, even if it does make Jon’s heart twinge behind his unfinished ribcage. “We’ve both made mistakes.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sorry,” Jon says again. Broken tape player.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Stop apologizing.” Martin finally reaches out, takes his hand, and Jon looks up into his face — the grief and love there, always just under the surface but brought forth in their entirety. Jon runs a thumb over Martin’s knuckles. Some small comfort where words won’t do.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay,” Jon says. Soft. “Do you want to keep going?” Leaving the choice up to Martin feels important, in this moment; for Jon has made a mistake, and now it is up to the one he loves to let him know where the boundary lines lay as he works to undo the harm of that burning apartment block. If he cannot save the souls trapped within that building, the least he can do is keep Martin from catching flame again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Martin hesitates. Jon doesn’t interrupt that sacred moment of decision-making, but he does squeeze Martin’s hand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Is it safe to rest a bit?” Jon nods. There’s nothing that can hurt them here, not really, but they’re far enough in-between realms that nothing will even try. “I think I could use a bit of a breather, then.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Jon sets their packs down gently, not wanting to make any sounds more than necessary; everything feels too fragile, like those early days in the cabin before everything’d gone awful, dancing around each other for fear of being too openly anything-at-all. They’d gotten past the delicate silence soon enough, and will do so again here, he’s sure.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He settles himself onto the ground and tugs Martin with him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I used to knit, you know,” Jon says after a very long time, or possibly no time at all. Breaks the silence but only just, quiet murmurings into Martin’s lonelystreaked hair. “In uni. Was never very good at it, but it was good distraction when I was feeling too anxious to do anything else.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Martin makes a quiet </span>
  <em>
    <span>mmm</span>
  </em>
  <span> noise, looks up at Jon through his lashes. He’s leaned up against Jon’s shoulder, warm and solid. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Once all this is over. Once we… </span>
  <em>
    <span>fix the world</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” He makes himself say it as if it’s a given, a definite outcome, the </span>
  <em>
    <span>only</span>
  </em>
  <span> outcome. Puts every ounce of confidence he does not feel into the phrase. “I’ll make you a new sweater. I know — I know it’s not the same, it doesn’t replace anything, I know, but —”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’d like that, Jon.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Martin’s smiling, though it’s small, hesitant, the frostbitten echo of past joy slowly warming up. Jon returns it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Alright, then. It’s a plan.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i just want them to talk about things. it's all i want. please jonny.</p>
<p>comments are good. hmu on tumblr at <a href="http://dykivist.tumblr.com">dykivist</a>. donate to bail funds.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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